Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish Grand Prix, but it wasn't easy for him with the Scuderia Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel making him fight for every inch of track he gained, even his speech was laboured as he spoke with the team on several occasions, showing how hard he was fighting the entire race.
Sebastian, who eventually finished the race second to Hamilton, got a fantastic getaway off the line and over the course of the first lap, while chaos and mayhem went on behind him, the German driver manages to pull out a two plus second gap over the Mercedes.
Behind him, the second Mercedes of Bottas was on the inside of Kimi Raikkonen while ht e charging Red Bull of Max Verstappen was on the other side, Sadly, three doesn't go into one and first Valtteri made contact with the Ferrari on one side and then the Ferrari and the Red Bull made contact, knocking the latter two out of the race.
A little further back Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso made contact result in a trip through the gravel for Alonso and a puncture for Massa.
But up the front, Sebastian was oblivious. He drove brilliantly, looking completely in control while Lewis Hamilton languished in his wake, telling the tam over the radio that he was unable to catch the Prancing Horse in front of him.
The camera pans over the crowd and a small boy, decked out completely in Ferrari gear, is devastated that Kimi has ended up in the gravel and is quite visibly distressed.
Continuing to charge out the front, Sebastian had control for the first 14 laps, and then he came in for an early stop. This allowed Hamilton into the lead of the race. When the Ferrari came back out, he was in traffic and had to get past several slower cars before coming up behind the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
Bottas, who was using the same engine that saw him take victory in Russia two weeks ago, was a lot slower than his teammate and he certainly didn't make things easy for Vettel. Hamilton pitted, several laps later, and put on the slower medium tyres as he chased down Vettel, who was being held up by his teammate.
Vettel soon got past and back into the lead of the race. There was no competition from behind the three leaders with the fourth place Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo some 30 seconds further back. When Lewis came up behind Valtteri he passed him with ease, but because he was on the harder compound, it was virtually impossible to catch him.
Speaking of virtual, the virtual safety car came out after another car stopped in a dangerous spot, and Lewis took advantage to pit for softer rubber on the final lap under those conditions. This meant that when Sebastian came in to pit the following lap, it was under full green conditions.
Almost perfect, but not quite.
Vettel came out of the pits and the two were side by side with Vettel actually nerfing Hamilton a little wide as he went through, but this time the situation was reversed, Hamilton was on the soft compound Pirelli and Vettel was on the medium, so it was his turn to have the faster car.
Meanwhile, Valtteri's Mercedes engine gave up the fight on lap 39 and he retired, leaving just one Ferrari, one Mercedes and one Red Bull left to finish the race.
After a fierce battle of catching the leading Ferrari, Hamilton finally got past and back into the lead. While many though his softer rubber would eventually cause him grief, he managed to keep a steady gap of roughly three seconds over Vettel until the end when he claimed the 55th victory of his Formula One career.
Vettel crossed the line in P2 with Daniel Riccardo, who moved into third when Bottas' engine failed, rounding out the podium.
Fantastically for Force India, there drivers, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon finished fourth and fifth, giving them a bucket load of points in their fight for third with Red Bull Racing.
"Grands Prix like that are why we go motor racing," said Mercedes James Allison. "Winning is always lovely. But when you win a proper 12 round heavyweight fight in this kind of style, and along the way answer all sorts of questions about tyre degradation, following other teams and the car's handling - and then see a driver at the peak of his craft like Lewis was today - there's nothing better than that. It was a body blow not to get our second car home and we will be looking carefully at what happened to Valtteri. But the sweetness of winning is some compensation for the bitterness of that retirement."
